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| The War on Natural Law: Part One |
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The laws of nature are never written by men, and I suspect this to be one of the main reasons so many politicos and self-important media personalities choose to ignore them. A couple of easily observed and understood examples of natural law are gravity and hydrodynamics.
Most of us know inherently that what goes up must come down, and that water flows down hill seeking its own level. It is also relatively easy to conceptualize what would happen if we were to damn a stream. The laws of nature will raise the water level in the reservoir behind the damn until the water goes over and/or around the damn. Now, we could delay and impede this natural process temporarily by building the damn taller and wider. However, the cost of each new expansion of the damn gets more prohibitive and the ever growing size of the reservoir will continue to envelope and destroy useful land and resources above the damn. The greater our efforts to stop the stream, the more violent the inevitable failure of the damn will be. Our “War on the Stream” was destine to fail by the very design of the Earth.
Now the argument could be made that instead of waging war on the natural laws of hydrodynamics, we could work in accordance with the laws of nature and have a much more favorable outcome for mankind. For example, we could, and often do, build a damn with a gate system, which can regulate the flow of water down stream. Yes it is true; this will never represent a total victory over the laws of nature. However, working in recognition of the laws of nature offers us at least some level of control while almost completely limiting the risk of a violent failure. We have almost complete control over the amount of water that piles up above the damn, the ability to control the flood plane below the damn, and a relatively static reservoir of fresh water around which to build a civilization. We can even collect the supreme dividend of hydro-electric power thanks to our willingness to stay at peace with Natural Law.
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2009-04-02 22:02:40 |Administrator| JohnLocke
The government has zero authority to determine personal choice and behavior. The government most certainly can however, and all too often does, criminalize personal choice and behavior. Government has almost unlimited ability to make things worse for those in lower socio-economic areas, and absolutely no ability to make their lives better. Anyway, are you suggesting that the "War on Drugs" is actually preventing drugs from making their way into these less privileged areas? Pick any impoverished neighborhood in America, and I will find you some crack in 5 minutes. As far as the age limits go, all I can say it that it is easier for a 17 year-old to buy a sack of grass or a bag of blow than it is for them to buy a six-pack of beer or even a pack of cigarettes.
Also, I believe the criminalization of the common street drugs came about under FDR round about 1933. However, the Ronald Reagan administration did escalate the back pressure and criminalization of the drug traff...
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2009-04-03 04:21:00 |24.243.1.xxx| Louis Garcia
The government absolutely has the authority to control behavior and personal choice. Let’s take Free Speech for instance. Yelling fire in a crowded building is a great example of how it is the government’s responsibility to keep other peoples liberties from infringing on mine. Who cares how much someone may have to drink at dinner; it’s no one’s business but theirs. But, the second they get in a car, the government absolutely has a duty, and responsibility to its citizens, to control that drunk driver’s behavior.
Bringing it back to “harder” drugs (as if Cannabis has killed even a billionth of the people that alcohol has), Americans like to put nice pretty labels on everything, so it’s easier for us to understand the world we live in. Good and Evil are two of the labels that we most often distort. We have decided to say that drugs are evil and just be done with it. But, actions don’t decide what is right or wrong, consequences do. If that drunk driver I mentioned earlier gets in h...
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2009-04-05 19:51:21 |SAdministrator| TheAnonymous - Ohh the Gov... save us please!
The difficult problem the government has when trying to regulate a persons choice is that when a choice only effects the chooser natural law shows us that no person or government has the power to change that choice.
The government can attempt to protect people from the results of other peoples choices but preventing the choice itself is a foolish goal. We must remember that liberty gives us the freedom to make as may "bad" decisions as we want... the government must attempt to protect others from the harmful results of those decisions while not restricting the liberty that gives us the freedom to make those choices... the government must protect those choices that may be unpopular or seen by other people as evil., if they don't protect those choices then liberty is lost by all, not just the ones that are making the choices themselves
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2009-04-05 22:18:13 |Administrator| JohnLocke
Louis, you have just made my point beautifully. The government has ZERO authority over personal choice and behavior. If the government did have such an authority there would be no drunk driving accidents. I mean, there are clearly laws against drunk driving, and there are even stiffer laws against killing someone while driving under the influence. Yet everyday people chose to drive drunk, and everyday people are killed. This is because the authority that you wish the government had is really only the authority to change, or add too, the consequences of personal choice and behavior.
As for the idea that the government should somehow regulate who can use certain drugs based on some standardized testing or course work is a terrible idea. Not only is it un-American to believe that government should limit rights based on the government's judgment, but it would accomplish next to nothing it would be intended to accomplish. First, it would do nothing to end the illegal drug market...
I love the analog of the dam to the war on drugs, but do you think that as long as the majority of the violence occurs outside our boarders, the people will not be willing to take a stand? The way I see it, the US Government is knowingly building dams across L.America, but as long as the US citizens don't care when those dams break or who it kills, why should they? From an American Imperialist point of view, as long as it's not happening in our house, we rather turn a blind eye to it, pay our taxes, and pretend we are still the greatest country on earth.
Secondly, and I hope you plan one addressing this issue as well seeing as this is part 1; this is not water that the dams will be letting in. For some Americans this is a deadly toxic sludge that will infect many people and cripple certain lower income population centers. Yes, this is another law of nature, but I don't think the majority of Americans are willing to take such an objective look at the value of human life. On of the g...